Fonte: Service quality in public transportation services–aligning the operations perspective with customer expectationsPublicador: Service quality in public transportation services–aligning the operations perspective with customer expectations

The main objective of this paper is to explore the alignment between the operations
perspective of service quality and the customer expectations. In order to analyse this
alignment, the concept and operational dimensions of service quality are revised, as well
as the concept of customer expectations. A model is presented, with the purpose of
exploring the mentioned relationship and to guide the empirical study. A metro
company in Europe was the core of this exploratory case study.

The Research Project “Costs and Benefits of urban dispersion on a local scale” aims to compare costs and benefits of different forms of land use in two urban areas in Portugal: Aveiro and Évora. Concerning the costs, it will look at public infrastructure and mobility, while the benefits will be assumed and assessed as Quality of Life (QoL).
We expect that such data, expressed in monetary terms, will provide new input for the decision-making process in urban planning and design, contemplating objective data, as well as different perceptions and valuations of urban contexts.
This paper will briefly go through the Project’s purposes, emphasising those specific to the task on the definition and the assessment of QoL. Methodologically this task has three main steps: i) to provide background information on the multidimensionality of the QoL concept and its operationalization (problems and difficulties); ii) to develop a new concept of QoL at the local level (to identify the main attributes that explain the QoL in different settlement types - dispersed and continuous); iii) to develop, conceptually, a methodology to measure QoL on a local scale.
A final note is due to state that no results will be presented, only methodological developments achieved so far.

Fonte: Environmentally Friendly and Safe Technologies for Quality of Fruits and Vegetables Universidade do Algarve, Faro.Publicador: Environmentally Friendly and Safe Technologies for Quality of Fruits and Vegetables Universidade do Algarve, Faro.

Quality of two tomato cultivars (‘Dundee’ and ‘V1’) produced in greenhouses, under different agronomical conditions during a season, was studied. The main goal was to measure quality of tomato fruits produced under different environmental conditions, and to understand their influence on final quality. To achieve this objective several physical and chemical general quality parameters were evaluated and to study nutritional quality, antioxidants (lycopene, beta-carotene, vitamin C) and total sugars (fructose and glucose) were analyzed. Analyses of variance were performed considering the factors “Harvest time”, “Cultivar” and “Agronomical conditions” that correspond to the different conditions inside greenhouses. The MANOVA statistical analysis revealed that all the factors considered were significant as well as their interactions. The factor “Harvest time” was the most important to explain the differences. The ‘V1’ fruits produced in the metallic greenhouse without additional CO2 had higher and more homogeneous weight values and also higher skin firmness. The colour coordinate a* was generally lower for fruits grown in traditional greenhouse. ‘Dundee’ fruits reached the highest SST medium value of 6.37 ºBrix. Biosynthesis of lycopene and vitamin C was affected by agronomical conditions and also predetermined by cultivars. ‘Dundee’ cultivar seems to be more sensitive to agronomical conditions than the ‘V1’. Beta carotene content was mainly due to genetic factors. The ‘V1’ exhibited higher values of beta carotene for all the greenhouse conditions.

Many international, political, and economic influences led to increased demands for development of new quality assurance systems for universities. Like many policies and processes that aim to assure quality, Ontario’s Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) did not define quality. This study sought to explore conceptions of quality and approaches to quality assurance used within Ontario’s universities. A document analysis of the QAF’s rationale and structure suggested that quality was conceived primarily as fitness for purpose, while suggested indicators represented an exceptional conception of quality. Ontario universities perpetuated such confusion by adopting the framework without customizing it to their institutional conceptions of quality. Drawing upon phenomenographic traditions, a qualitative investigation was conducted to better understand various conceptions of quality held by university administrators and to appreciate ways in which they implemented the QAF. Three main approaches to quality assurance were identified: (a) Defending Quality, characterized by conceptions of quality as exceptional, which focuses on administrative accountability and uses a hands-off strategy to defend traditional notions of quality inputs and resources; (b) Demonstrating Quality...

Mexico City has for years experienced
high levels of ozone and particulate air pollution. In
1995-99 the entire population of the Mexico City
metropolitan area was exposed to annual average
concentrations of fine particulate pollution (particulates
with a diameter of less than 10 micrometers, or PM10)
exceeding 50 micrograms per cubic meter, the annual average
standard in both Mexico and the United States. Two million
people were exposed to annual average PM10 levels of more
than 75 micrograms per cubic meter. The daily maximum
one-hour ozone standard was exceeded at least 300 days a
year. The Mexico Air Quality Management Team documents
population-weighted exposures to ozone and PM10 between 1995
and 1999, project exposures in 2010, and computes the value
of four scenarios for 2010: A 10 percent reduction in PM10
and ozone. A 20 percent reduction in PM10 and ozone.
Achievement of ambient air quality standards across the
metropolitan area. A 68 percent reduction in ozone and a 47
percent reduction in PM10 across the metropolitan area. The
authors calculate the health benefits of reducing ozone and
PM10 for each scenario using dose-response functions from
the peer-reviewed literature. They value cases of morbidity
and premature mortality avoided using three approaches: Cost
of illness and forgone earnings only (low estimate). Cost of
illness...

This paper explores how the evidence-based practice and quality improvement movements are informing our understanding of what counts as quality patient care. Implicit in the debate is that we have understood and can manage the concept of patient safety. Using a true case study, the paper will illustrate how a clearer, more integrated understanding of safety, evidence-based practice and quality improvement principles can lead to more effective care. Central to this shift is the ability to move out of traditional, professionally bound ways of thinking to new systems and new ways of providing patient-centred care. Equally, how we generate the evidence to find out how safe or otherwise health care delivery systems are, must be as important an area of investigation as the search for a new therapy or treatment for a particular disease; Alison Kitson

Bugzilla is an online software bug reporting system. It is widely used by both open-source software projects and commercial software companies and has become a major source to study software evolution, software project management, and software quality control. In some research studies, the number of bug reports has been used as an indicator of software quality. This paper examines this representation. We investigate whether the number of bug reports of a specific version of a software product is correlated with its quality. Our study is performed on six branches of three open-source software systems. Our results do not support using the number of bug reports as a quality indicator of a specific version of an evolving software product. Instead, the study reveals that the number of bug reports is in some ways correlated with the time duration between product releases. Finally, the paper suggests using accumulated bug reports as a means to represent the quality of a software branch.

Fonte: European Association for the Development of Renewable Energies, Environment and Power Quality (EA4EPQ)Publicador: European Association for the Development of Renewable Energies, Environment and Power Quality (EA4EPQ)

This paper describes a preliminary experience with the installation and use of a no-gap power quality meter network along a distribution grid in the North of Spain. No-gap power quality meters record all cycles of voltage and current waveform for all the monitored channels. This approach extends the analysis further than the classical approach provided by other power quality meters that records only survey data and events triggered according predefined rules. A comparison with the classical approach is discussed and the results of a two year power quality survey are also provided.

This report serves as a guide to the
utility and relevance of water quality prediction modeling.
It draws upon examples from recent World Bank water
resources and wastewater management projects. The goal of
the guide is to provide a broad-based understanding of the
water quality prediction process and to evaluate the
relative merits and cost-effectiveness of using water
quality models under field conditions. The guide build on
and revises the chapter on water quality modeling prepared
for the World Bank's "Pollution Prevention and
Abatement Handbook, 1998 (report no. 19128)." The guide
comprises five sections. Chapter 1 provides a general
overview of the use of water quality models, including the
objectives of water quality modeling, the approach to water
quality prediction, the costs of modeling processes, and the
general components of typical water quality models. Chapter
2 discusses the most common water quality parameters that
are modeled, the receiving water processes, quality
assurance and control for the water quality data and model
predictions...

Fonte: Ageing comparative study between diferent cities in Brazil and Portugal: A health analyses, ageing and quality of lifePublicador: Ageing comparative study between diferent cities in Brazil and Portugal: A health analyses, ageing and quality of life

Introduction
The demographic epidemiologic transition is a worldwide phenomenon and it is present both in the developed countries and increasingly in the developing ones. The population estimates in the studied countries show that Portugal is nowadays in the list of the oldest countries in the world and in Brazil the “ageing of the top” will occur up to 2025 occupying the 6th elderly population of the world, in absolute terms.
Methods
The aim of this study was to analyze comparatively Life Quality between the senior citizens who participate in the Public Physical Activity Programs at Nisa, Portugal (Program Activ Sénior) and Florianópolis, Brazil (Programa Floripa Ativa). A transversal descriptive study was carried out including 258 senior citizens, both genders, from October to December 2011 using the Brazilian and Portuguese versions of the Short Form 36 questionnaire. The statistics tests performed were Student’s t-teste, ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis test and K-S test.
Results
The global Cronbach’s alpha was 0.72 for the Physical and 0.73 for the Mental Component. Descriptive analysis showed that the subjects' average age was 69,56 years old (PD:+/- 5,74 years) and that most of them were women (84,8%). The best scores for both cities/countries were obtained for the Mental Component: Social Function (83...

China is the world's most populous country with over 1.35 billion inhabitants; also in area, China is one of the world's largest countries. However, the distribution of water resources in the whole territory of China is not homogeneous and there are increasingly severe water shortages, particularly in the north-east of the country. Over the past decade, the water quality of lakes and reservoirs in China has degraded due to many causes, especially the large population. Water pollution and destruction of aquatic ecosystems have caused massive damage to the functions and the integrity of water resources. Roughly, 298 million Chinese in rural areas do not have access to safe drinking water, and 40% of China's rivers were, by 2011, polluted by industrial and agricultural waste.
The aim of this study is to identify the most common water quality problems in lakes and reservoirs in China and to analyze the variables that control the water quality, based on research on scientific publications, international journals databases, Google maps, and other available sources of information. After the initial literature research, 58 papers were selected; they described the conditions of 52 water bodies. This information was summarized in a Table with the most relevant characteristics...

Presently, we are well aware that poor quality data is costing large amounts of money to corporations all over the world. Nevertheless, little research has been done about the way Organizations are dealing with data quality management and the strategies they are using. This work aims to find some answers to the following questions: which business drivers motivate the organizations to engage in a data quality management initiative?, how do they implement data quality management? and which objectives have been achieved, so far? Due to the kind of research questions involved, a decision was made to adopt the use of multiple exploratory case studies as research strategy [32]. The case studies were developed in a telecommunications company (MyTelecom), a public bank (PublicBank) and in the central bank (CentralBank) of one European Union Country. The results show that the main drivers to data quality (DQ) initiatives were the reduction in non quality costs, risk management, mergers, and the improvement of the company's image among its customers, those aspects being in line with literature [7, 8, 20]. The commercial corporations (MyTelecom and PublicBank) began their DQ projects with customer data, this being in accordance with literature [18]...

57Th EOQ Congress, Quality Renaissance - Co-creating a Viable Future"; The research proves that under certain conditions: The economic, environmental and social dimensions are key to organizational sustainable success;
Stakeholder satisfaction is significantly
higher when a Social Responsibility
program is present and it is relevant for
the organizational sustainable success
and competitive position, as suggested by
Freeman (1984) Stakeholder Theory and in
line with ISO 9004:2009 and the Excellence
Models approaches.

Fonte: Center for Quality, University of Montenegro and Center for Quality, University of Kragujevac, SerbiaPublicador: Center for Quality, University of Montenegro and Center for Quality, University of Kragujevac, Serbia

A revision of several paths for the Quality journey is presented: from Quality Gurus and Total Quality Management (TQM) models to the ISO 9000 International Standards Series. Since ISO 9001:2008 is now in the revision process to the expected ISO 9001:2015 version, an analysis is made of he proposed changes and the underlying reasons and the impacts foreseen on the more than 1.3 Million certified organizations.
This revision should be a step towards TQM and reflect the changes of an increasingly complex, demanding and dynamic environment, while assuring that complying organizations are able to provide conformity products and services that satisfy their customers. Major benefits are expected such as less emphasis on documentation and new/reinforced approaches: consideration of Organizational Context and (relevant) Stakeholders, Risk Based thinking and Knowledge Management.

In recent decades, what matters for individual quality of life (QoL) has
increasingly been the focus of empirical social science research. However, individuals
are rarely asked directly what is important for their quality of life as part of large-scale
surveys. The present analysis studies perceptions of what matters for QoL in a largescale
longitudinal dataset ? the British Household Panel Survey ? which includes
an open-ended question on QoL in three waves spanning ten years. We find that
concepts of QoL change over the life course and differ between men and women.We
hypothesize that changes in perceptions of QoL are related to important life events,
such as the birth of a first child and retirement. These life events constitute ?turning
points? after which individuals often shift their priorities of what matters for their
QoL.We further explore whether such shifts in priorities are stable or disappear more
than five years after the life event.

Executive Summary
Policy Question
How does perceived drinking water quality affect household willingness to pay (WTP) for clean water in rural Cambodia?
Background
Inadequate access to improved water and sanitation in the developing world continues to be a major public health and development challenge. UNICEF estimates that nearly 2 million child deaths are attributable to diarrhea (UNICEF, 2008). The excessive burden of diarrhea-related morbidity and mortality is partly attributable to inadequate access to safe drinking water. Poor access to high-quality and convenient water sources may partly be a problem of low demand (Whittington et al., 2009). In fact, there is relatively limited evidence in the literature on demand for water and sanitation services.
In this paper, we consider the demand for improved water quality only (rather than changes in both quality and convenience) in two communities in Kandal province, Cambodia. Importantly, many households in these communities already have access to convenient sources of water, either in the form of private connections to piped water networks, or via rainwater harvesting and storage where they live. These sources, however, are of variable quality, and water treatment, both at the system or household-level...

The value of management decisions, the security of our nation, and the very foundations of our business integrity are all dependent on the quality of data and information. However, the quality of the data and information is dependent on how that data or information will be used. This paper proposes a theory of data quality based on the five principles defined by J. M. Juran for product and service quality and extends Wang et al's 1995 framework for data quality research. It then examines the data and information quality literature from journals within the context of this framework.

The paper uses a quality management framework to analyze quality management approaches that have been implemented in institutions of higher education in the USA. The framework is comprised of three parameters, which are quality of design, quality of conformance and quality of performance. It turned out that only one of the nine articles that were examined dealt explicitly with quality of performance issues.; Copyright 2002 Taylor & Francis. Total quality management & business excellence journal article. The complete article can be found at www.informaworld.com. DOI: 10.1080/09544120120102441